MPG

I've been watching a lot of Roadkill episodes on YouTube recently. Now those guys know how to make a road trip eventful. To elevate my recent 2014 Toyota Highlander road trip to similar levels of excitement, I feel like I should have: a) disabled two out of the Highlander's six sparkplugs; b) replaced the Highlander's suspension bits with those from a 1973 Corolla; c) let a family of squirrels live in the interior for a month prior; and d) wear nothing but Freiburger-approved shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops.

Alas, I did none of the above. But I did complete my road trip up with a total of approximately 800 miles while also vaulting past 20,000 miles on the odometer. I'm also not sunburned, frostbitten, exhausted, filthy or otherwise deranged. I'll consider that a win.

March was "madness" for our 2014 Toyota Highlander. First, Dan Frio drove it out to Utah and back to attend a wedding. Later in the month, John DiPietro again headed west, this time driving to Indian Wells, Calif., to check out a professional tennis tournament. I've added a few extra miles myself.

Add it up and you've got a total of about 2,500 miles driven for March. As most of that was on the highway, I was curious to learn how our Highlander did for fuel economy.

With tickets in hand for the BNP Paribas Open pro tennis tournament at Indian Wells, I selected the keys to our 2014 Toyota Highlander. It seemed like a good choice for a 300-mile (round trip) mostly freeway cruise. As this is the most time I'd spent in the Highlander, I can see why this is such a popular, and Edmunds "A"-rated, choice in the midsize crossover segment. Following are four reasons (in no particular order) why the Highlander made this small road trip a pleasure.

Our 2014 Toyota Highlander continued to do its thing throughout the month of February, carrying people and cargo to a variety of local events. With no long road trips on the schedule, the Highlander still racked up nearly 1,500 miles.

Our 2014 Toyota Highlander has been with us for 8 months now, and during that time we've run the odometer up to 12,970 miles.

November wasn't a particularly heavy month, only 1,499 miles, but this included a quicky road trip out to La Quinta, and a whole lotta city commuting. Did either of these things have an impact on our overall fuel economy?

Last week I drove our long-term 2014 Toyota Highlander out to La Quinta, California to visit my parental units. La Quinta is about 150 miles due east of my home base, all of which is covered on Interstate 10, a major roadway.

When the trip was complete, imagine my surprise when, despite averaging 22.1 mpg over the 306.7 miles, the Highlander was in need of a refill.

Our 2014 Toyota Highlander didn't see much action during the month of August. With no big end-of-summer road trips on the calendar, the comfy SUV was pretty much regulated to moving people 'n stuff around town.

After a few months in the fleet our 2014 Toyota Highlander is proving to be a popular vehicle for weekend errands as well as week-long road trips. With well over 6,000 miles on the odometer its overall mileage has dipped slightly, but is still solidly over 20 mpg in combined driving.

Our long-term 2014 Toyota Highlander has been in our fleet for just over two months, but it's already cracked 5,500 miles. Most of those miles were driven during the month of April on long road trips, and with so much driving the Highlander required 12 stops at the gas station. The month of May was far less eventful, but we still recorded a new lowest-fill MPG.

This was the first full month in the fleet for our 2014 Toyota Highlander. It started things out with a lengthy trip to Oregon followed by a few other highway-heavy weekends.

Not surprisingly, its mileage numbers came in slightly above its official EPA ratings. Not only did it deliver a best tank of 26.5 mpg on one leg, its overall average so far is 21.3 mpg. Oh, and 431 miles on a tank isn't bad either.

It would be inaccurate to call our 2014 Toyota Highlander overpowered. At around 4,350 pounds, the Highlander asks a lot of its 270-horsepower V6. But when you demand power, the 3.5-liter delivers with smooth, rich urgency. It kicks down a gear, a polite suggestion, really. Then it kicks down a second gear, sends a wave of torque steer through the column, and a jolting reminder that a two-ton object in motion tends to stay in motion, even with good brakes.